Iran’s state-owned Fars claims that CNN has ‘fabricated’ the remarks made by President Hassan Rouhani in response to the question about the Holocaust. The US news channel added to or changed parts of his remarks, the agency said.

On Tuesday, the newly elected Iranian president gave his first
English-language TV message in an interview with CNN's Christiane
Amanpour. The interview made international headlines with
hundreds of news agencies worldwide boasting titles like
"Iran's President Rouhani calls Holocaust 'reprehensible'
crime against Jews" or "Rouhani recognizes the Holocaust
as crime against Jews".

Asking about Rouhani’s take on the Holocaust, Amanpour noted that
his predecessor, President Ahmadinejad, infamously denied the
Holocaust. "Do you accept what it was, and what was it?"
the US journalist asked.

However, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency (FNA), the news
channel made up parts of Rouhani's answers, adding the word
'Holocaust' among other placatory remarks to its translation from
the answers given in Farsi.

Fars translation:

CNNtranslation:

"I have said before that I am not a historian and
historians should specify, state and explain the aspects of
historical events, but generally we fully condemn any kind
of crime committed against humanity throughout history,
including the crime committed by the Nazis both against the
Jews and non-Jews, the same way that if today any crime is
committed against any nation or any religion or any people
or any belief, we condemn that crime and genocide.
Therefore, what the Nazis did is condemned, [but] the
aspects that you talk about, clarification of these aspects
is a duty of the historians and researchers, I am not a
history scholar."

"I've said before that I am not a historian and then, when
it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust, it
is the historians that should reflect on it. But in general
I can tell you that any crime that happens in history
against humanity, including the crime that Nazis committed
towards the Jews as well as non-Jews is reprehensible and
condemnable. Whatever criminality they committed against
the Jews, we condemn, the taking of human life is
contemptible, it makes no difference whether that life is
Jewish life, Christian or Muslim, for us it is the same,
but taking the human life is something our religion rejects
but this doesn’t mean that on the other hand you can say
Nazis committed crime against a group now therefore, they
must usurp the land of another group and occupy it. This
too is an act that should be condemned. There should be an
even-handed discussion."

According to Fars, the word ‘Holocaust’ as well as the statement
"whatever criminality they committed against the Jews, we
condemn" are "the worst parts of the fabrications which
totally change what President Rouhani has said."

In Rouhani’s speech to the UN General Assembly, one of the most
highly anticipated of the session, the Iranian president said he
was ready to immediately engage in result-oriented talks. While
the West suspects Iran’s nuclear program has military aims,
Rouhani said that “nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass
destruction have no place in Iran's security and defense
doctrine, and contradict our fundamental religious and ethical
convictions.”

Hopes were high that the Iranian and US presidents would hold
talks in New York, or at least exchange a handshake. However,
Obama and Rouhani did not meet at the UN. In Obama’s speech to
the General Assembly, he challenged Iran to take concrete steps
toward resolving its standoff with the West. Rouhani, a moderate
who was elected president in June, said in his speech that Iran
wanted the international community to recognize its right to
enrich uranium. Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator, said the
two states could "arrive at a framework to manage our
differences" if the US did not cave in to the influence of
"warmongers."